The Lotus beauty and the Jerez tests

We already had a sneak peak at the new Lotus T127, but they officially launched the car today:

That is a stunning paintjob, on a very boxy looking car. I’m hoping that won’t hinder their performance, because on the looks they’ve made me a fan.

Meanwhile in Jerez testing continues. Today was another utterly uninteresting all-wet day, but yesterday there was some dry running. There was very little that we could make of the cars performance against each others, the most remarkable thing being a very good super-long stint by Fernando Alonso on the Ferrari: the italian team keeps looking like a front-runner in this off-season. It’s slightly weird that every team seems to be making happy comments about their car’s performance, even considering that at this point of the year everyone is always a little optimistic – that means that all the cars are close (as some drivers have pointed out), but that also means that someone is going to be caught very surprised at Bahrain thinking they had a more competitive package… I just can’t figure out exactly who, at this moment.

The one team that clearly isn’t at the same level of the rest of the pack, unsurprisingly, is the new Virgin Racing. A front wing fell off from Timo Glock’s car yesterday, it was a bit of a serious problem, and it took until the afternoon today to get the car running again. They are way way off in the laptimes, but keep in mind that they have done very little laps, and today again didn’t get to lap in the dry as some teams managed to in the early morning. Expect them to be slow at Bahrain, but far better than the 17 seconds lag on today’s timesheet!

Thursday’s times:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Kobayashi BMW-Sauber (B) 1:19.950 103
2. Buemi Toro Rosso Ferrari (B) 1:20.026 121
3. Button McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:20.618 83
4. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth (B) 1:20.629 67
5. Liuzzi Force India- Mercedes (B) 1:20.754 80
6. M.Schumacher Mercedes GP (B) 1:21.083 124
7. Alonso Ferrari (B) 1:21.424 129
8. Kubica Renault (B) 1:22.003 103
9. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:22.043 99
10. Glock Virgin-Cosworth (B) 1:29.964 11

Today’s times:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:19.919 76
2. de la Rosa BMW-Sauber (B) 1:20.736 58
3. Sutil Force India-Mercedes (B) 1:21.428 48
4. Massa Ferrari (B) 1:21.603 72
5. Vettel Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:21.783 59
6. Petrov Renault (B) 1:22.000 68
7. Rosberg Mercedes GP (B) 1:22.820 53
8. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth (B) 1:23.217 120
9. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:23.985 68
10. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth (B) 1:37.107 8

Force India and Lotus show their colors

Not like we had never seen Force India’s, but here’s their new car anyway:

The VJM03 isn’t the most exciting car out there on the grid, possibly due to its mostly white livery, but I have got a good feeling about their pace this season. They have made big steps forward last year, and the opposition is weakened for this season. Surely they’re going to look good?

Meanwhile, Autosport.com managed to take a photo of the brand new Lotus team’s first car, doing its shakedown out there in Silverstone today, at the hands of test driver Fairuz Fauzy:

That looks absolutely stunning – and I’m not usually a fan of green. Screw the poll over there in the right, this wins “best looking car of the season” by far. Autosport says they don’t know whether it’s the livery for the season or not, I hope it stays. People on the forums are saying that the car shape looks rather basic, but what would you expect for a team that was the last to know they’d need to build a car? At least they are on schedule and ready to go unlike Campos and USF1…

They will join the F1 pack in testing next week, whereas Virgin, Force India and Red Bull will make their first testing appearances of the off-season tomorrow in Jerez de la Frontera.